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Deleted saved 2 days of work in a file

UG-VINSLAUSKAITE, GRETA 0 Reputation points
2026-01-20T13:47:30.5733333+00:00

Hi, I had been writing on word for 2 days an I woke up today to continue working on my assignment and all my work from 2 days has disappeared I was left with the work I had done last week. Auto save was consistently on. I can’t rename the file or see developed versions.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For education | iOS
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  1. Tina L 12,330 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-01-20T14:57:16.1033333+00:00

    Hello WUG-VINSLAUSKAITE, GRETA,  

    Thank you for reaching out to the Q&A forum! 

    I sincerely apologize, and I truly understand how inconvenient this situation is, and I genuinely want to help you as much as I can.

    However, as a forum moderator, I can only provide guidance based on research, available documentation, and my own experience. I don’t have access to backend systems, so I’m unable to restore the file directly for you.

    To help me support you better, please provide me more detail: 

    1. Since AutoSave was enabled, have you checked whether the document is actually stored in OneDrive? 
    2. Do you also use Word on a desktop device? If yes, have you tried checking the Recent tab or the Recover Unsaved Documents section there? 
    3. I also noticed you used the “edu” tag; is your account a school-provided account (e.g., ending in .edu) or a personal account such as @outlook.com or @hotmail.com? 

    If you have already gone through all the steps above in this Q&A assistance and still cannot find any recovered or synced versions of your document, then unfortunately it appears that the file was not saved as expected. 

    I know that although iPad devices have become very capable and can replace laptops for many daily tasks, in my experience, for Word documents that require stability and reliable autosave, the desktop version of Word is still more robust.  

    Therefore, if you need to recreate your work, I strongly recommend doing it on a desktop version of Word and double-checking that the file is properly saved to OneDrive before continuing or downloading as a local copy. 

    Looking forward to hearing from you!

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. AI answer

    2026-01-20T13:48:10.68+00:00

    If you have lost two days of work in Word and AutoSave was on, there are several steps you can take to try to recover your document:

    1. Check the Document Recovery Pane: Close and reopen Word. If there are any AutoRecover files available, the Document Recovery task pane should open, showing any recovered files. You can double-click on the file name to open it and then save it as a .docx file.
    2. Search for Temporary Files: You can search for temporary files that may contain your work. To do this, select Start, type *.tmp, and press Enter. Look for files that match the dates and times you were working on your document. If you find any, you can try opening them in Word.
    3. Check for Backup Files: If you have the "Always create backup copy" option enabled in Word, you might find a backup file with a .wbk extension. Search for these files by entering *.wbk in the search box.
    4. Check the Recycle Bin: If you accidentally deleted the document, check the Recycle Bin to see if it is still there. You can restore it if found.
    5. Restore from OneDrive or SharePoint: If your document was saved or synced to OneDrive or SharePoint, you can restore deleted files from there as well.

    If none of these methods work, it may be difficult to recover the lost content, but these steps should cover the most common recovery options available in Word.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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